


Walk Beside Me

by Eustacia Vye (eustaciavye)



Series: Striking A Balance [2]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-30
Updated: 2011-09-07
Packaged: 2017-10-23 05:50:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/246917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eustaciavye/pseuds/Eustacia%20Vye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ariadne and Arthur never pressed Eames for more than he was willing to give them. He was surprised that they were still around, especially after discovering a daughter he never knew existed.</p><p>Sequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/241851">Boulevard of Broken Dreams.</a> Incorporates the prompt: <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/inception_kink/17044.html?thread=34694804#t34694804">Established relationship. One of the boys has a child.</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. No Decision To Be Made

"Took me long enough to find you."

Eames didn't visibly appear to freeze, but his insides ran cold at the voice behind him. "Oh? I wasn't aware that I needed to be found." He slowly turned around and gave the man standing there an insouciant grin. "I've been about, of course. Working. That sort of thing."

The man standing there was tall and thin, of mixed heritage. He had a South London accent, dreadlocks and brown eyes that bored into Eames'. "Hiding, you mean."

"Not hardly. I told you. Working."

"Working now, then?"

"As a matter of fact, yes, I am." Eames turned around again, looking across the crowded marketplace. "You're a long way from Brixton, Joshua."

"So're you," Joshua replied, voice flinty. "Couldn't have pegged you as the Calcutta type."

"I suppose you follow rumors well, then," Eames returned, his blue eyes scanning the crowd. He bit back a curse when he realized he lost the subject's sister. Fuck. He didn't want to deal with Joshua and now he would have to double back and wait for the sister to return to her family's home. He'd have to observe a different market day, then.

"Not much else to do on the estates," Joshua said, a bitter edge to his voice.

"Well, now you've found me. Now what?" Eames asked, turning to face Joshua. They had been friends once, and Joshua had hidden him from some particularly nasty thugs that had followed him from Bonn. "You made it clear you wanted me gone and wanted nothing more to do with me. Why track me down now?"

"It's been going on three years since I saw you last," Joshua replied, accent deepening slightly with his irritation. "I knew you wouldn't come if I just called you."

"So? What's so important you had to fly halfway around the world to see me when you made it clear you can't stand me?"

"Claudia's dead," Joshua told him, voice sharp. His eyes were hard inside of his face. "I have enough shit to deal with, I can't take on any of her responsibilities."

"What are you talking about?" Eames asked, suppressing the urge to hit Joshua across the face. "Speak up."

"Claudia's dead, and I need you to take care of your daughter."

Eames froze. "What the fuck did you just say?"

Joshua paused and took in his shock. A moment, and then he began to laugh. "Oh bloody hell. She never told you." His voice was bitter, bitter. "All this time I thought you were a useless fucking tosser, and you never even knew. Stupid bitch."

"What did you say?" Eames repeated, grabbing Joshua by the front of his shirt. "What in bleeding hell did you _say?"_

Joshua stopped laughing and pushed Eames' hands away from his shirt. "Last time I hid you, you and Claudia got together, yeah?" Eames nodded slowly. "Didn't mean nothing, did it?"

"It was Claudia. It never meant anything." Eames felt his hands start to shake, and he shoved them into his pockets. "I hadn't seen her in three years, Joshua."

He dug into his wallet and pulled out a photo. "Her name's Lucy. You know where we live, yeah? We never left, even if you did."

Eames reached out and took the photo. The girl looked about two years old, with bright blue eyes and blonde hair, a mouth full of sharp little teeth in an unabashed grin. She was holding a ratty teddy bear and hand me downs, and he could see the lines of Claudia's face in her cheekbones. The rest of her was all him.

"Funeral was two days ago," Joshua continued, oblivious to Eames' turmoil. "Swing by the estate and gather her up. I can't keep her, and Claudia had nobody else."

"You can't keep her?" Eames echoed numbly.

"She's not mine, and I'm nothing to Claudia. Just a roof over her head. State's going to take her away if you don't come get her."

Pain bloomed in his chest, sharp and painful. Eames looked up from the photo of Lucy. "I'll come get her."

***

Ariadne had come with Eames to Calcutta to take in the feeling of the city. She had sketches of the people and the marketplace, the buildings and the streets. Arthur had gone to research their actual subject, an international businessman looking to start a hostile takeover of another company. They were meant to find the business plans and get them to their employer, who was hoping to swoop in and take over the company himself. He texted Ariadne or Eames occasionally, leading to snarky texts in return from Eames. Ariadne sent him texts about the sketches she made or sent photos of interesting things. The last photo she sent that morning had been of a tesselated crack in a sidewalk that she wanted to incorporate _somewhere_ in a dream because she liked the pattern.

She looked up as soon as Eames came back into their hotel room. Her smile died when she took in his agitated manner and the nearly wild look in his eyes as he started digging around in the dresser to pack his things. "Did something happen? Did they see you?" she asked, getting up to her feet.

He blinked as if he hadn't even seen her in the room. "What? Oh... Oh. Not the subject's sister or anyone from that angle, no." He looked down at the clothes in his hands and then up at her concerned face. "I need to get to London. I haven't booked a flight yet, but I need to get back."

Ariadne simply nodded, sure she would get the story out of him with enough time. "All right, then. I'll book our tickets, and I'll let Arthur know we have to cancel this..."

"No, you can stay. I'll think of something else, I'm sure it'll be all right..."

She got up from the bed and put her hands on his arms, making him look at her. "It'll be all right because I'll be with you. We'll cancel if we have to, but I don't even know what's happening." She searched the panic in his eyes. "What's happened?" she asked, voice gentle. "What can you tell me?"

"I haven't... There's a lot you don't know about me," he said after a moment. "But I never would have left if I knew. I wouldn't just take off like that..."

Eames fell silent when Ariadne reached up and touched his face. "Whatever it is, we'll fix it somehow. Okay?"

Sometimes they still had to work their way around each other, and she sometimes felt as if she was in free fall around the two men. Well, mostly Eames. He was still so closed off at times, and at others was so heartbreakingly charming. She could see why he and Arthur kept colliding over the past several years, even if Eames kept running and Arthur never pressed him for more. Now she was drawn into that web, and it had been several months of this. Outside of Eames' hearing, Arthur had admitted that it was the longest period of time Eames had ever stayed with him. Arthur had been sure that it was her doing, that she balanced them somehow.

"I have a daughter," Eames ground out abruptly. "I never knew. I can't let her fall into the care system. It won't be good for her."

"Then we'll get her," Ariadne told him. "You pack our things, I'll take care of the flights."

"Just like that?" he asked in disbelief.

"Just like that." She smiled at him softly. "I can do my work anywhere. I can start designing on the plane, even. It doesn't matter where I am physically, you know. Let's get started, okay? The sooner you pack, the sooner we'll get to London."

Eames leaned forward and pressed his lips to her forehead, tension bleeding out of him. "Thank God for you, Ariadne," he murmured.

He packed swiftly, and fifteen minutes later they were checked out on their way to the airport. There was time left on the preparation for the job, and Arthur handled Ariadne's cryptic texts fairly well. He would meet them in his London flat as soon as he was done, and they would discuss changes to the job once they met.

Ariadne turned to Eames when his hand fell onto her thigh. "Are you okay?" she asked quietly.

She was almost starting to worry when he didn't seem to reply to her. "I'm not sure," he admitted finally.

Pushing the armrest out of the way, she turned and leaned her torso against his to kiss his mouth. He held her there, deepening the kiss. Even after it ended, he held onto the back of her head. "I'm here," she murmured. "And Arthur will be, too. He'll meet us at his flat, and we're going to figure it all out."

"I've never... I don't..." Eames closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "I don't know how to be a father. I never had one."

It explained so much and nothing at all at the same time. "You won't do it alone, Eames," she murmured gently, stroking his shoulders. "We'll be with you every step of the way."

"Thank you," he said, voice rough with emotion. He had dropped his masks around her over the past several months, and even around Arthur he seemed less testy and edgy. He didn't always need to push them away, and seemed more secure that they would always be there.

She kissed his stubbled cheek. "There's nowhere I'd rather be."

"You have horrible taste, darling," he drawled.

Ariadne snorted and gave him a playful poke in the arm. "I beg to differ. I think I have _wonderful_ taste, thank you very much. I have the two hottest men in the world in my bed every night." She grinned at his amused smile.

"So you want me for my body, is that it?" he asked, eyebrow arched slightly.

"It's just one of the things I love about you," she replied carelessly, aware that the words seemed to be more heavily laden for him. He eased under her touch, however, and she impulsively gave him another kiss.

They settled into a companionable silence. About an hour before the plane was set to land, Eames dug out the picture he had gotten from Joshua and gave it to Ariadne. "Her name is Lucy," he told her in flat tones.

"Oh, she's beautiful," Ariadne said, fingers brushing lightly against the photo. She looked at him with a smile. "She looks like you."

"I can't fuck up her life, Ariadne," Eames said in a low tone, tucking the photo back into his jacket pocket.

Ariadne gave him a confident smile and kissed his cheek. "Between the three of us, we'll take care of it. I'm sure of that."

He nodded, and settled back into his seat. If his grip on her hand was a little tight, she didn't complain.

***

Ariadne didn't know what to think about the council estate that Eames led her to. Even by estate standards, it was pretty run down. The flat in question was cluttered and smelled like smoke. Not all of the smoke seemed to be from tobacco, and she tried not to let her distaste show. Eames' indifferent mask was on, but there was a glint in his eyes that she didn't like. There was more to this place than simply where his daughter was staying, the daughter he didn't even know existed until hours ago. He tolerated her touch, but she had the feeling that he would rather raze the estate to the ground and simply be done with it.

The dreadlocked man that opened the door to the flat watched Eames carefully. "I guess you weren't the sodding useless bastard I thought you were," he had said upon seeing them there. His eyes flicked toward Ariadne dismissively. "Who's the chippy?"

Eames had leveled flinty eyes at the man, and he actually recoiled. "Don't _ever_ talk about Ariadne that way," he had said, some of the South London accent creeping into his voice.

"Where's Lucy?" Ariadne asked, diverting both of their attentions.

The man gestured down the narrow hallway. "She's in her room. Nap time and all that. Lydia's been helping, but she's knackered. Late night last night."

"Lydia?" Eames asked, heading down the hallway.

"She's... An entertainer, of sorts. She held down the fort while I hunted you down."

"You wouldn't have gone to Calcutta just to find me, Joshua," Eames said, tension in his voice. Ariadne simply followed him into the narrow apartment.

"I might've had a delivery in the area anyway," Joshua replied testily. "Not that it's any of your concern," he added.

Ariadne opened a door at random, and it wasn't a toddler's room. It was dark, with a covered adult-sized lump on the bed. The room smelled like smoke and sweat, and Ariadne quickly closed the door. She was guessing that was Lydia beneath the covers. The next room had the crib and dresser covered in battered toys and baby powder. It was cluttered, as if half the room was storage. It took a moment to realize that the storage area was actually piles of clothes, shoes and CD's on top of a mattress. Apparently Lucy had been sharing the room with someone; Ariadne could only guess this was where her mother had lived, too. Eames paused on the threshold of the room behind her, and she had the sense that he was afraid. Inside this room was a sleeping toddler he hadn't known about, a little girl that didn't know all she had was a father and his questionable line of work.

She strode into the bedroom without thinking about it, and looked down at the little girl lying in the crib. She had never thought about being a mother so young, and by tacit agreement no one had ever discussed the future. She doubted somnacin was safe for use during pregnancy anyway.

Lucy was asleep, a binky in her mouth and that ratty teddy bear clutched in her chubby fist. Her hair was long and blonde, running in tangles away from her face. She was breathing heavily, curled up on top of a pillow and beneath an adult duvet folded to fit into the crib. Her eyelashes were long, resting against her chubby cheeks. Her shirt was worn and thin, as if handed down through several children.

"She's beautiful, Eames," Ariadne murmured, looking up toward Eames. He was a few steps away, looking almost hesitant about coming closer.

"Eames?" Joshua asked from the doorway. "Is that the name you're going by now?"

"One of them," he replied absently. He stepped closer and put his hand on the railing, looking down at Lucy. "This is Lucy."

"Yeah. You staying a while?" Joshua asked. He waited until Eames' absentminded nod. "Good. I got shit to do. I only got back a few hours before you got here, and I can't afford to just sit here and watch you stare at her."

Eames looked up, eyes flashing. "Is all her stuff in this room, then? Anything anywhere else?"

"Eh, Lydia might know if the other kids on the estate took some things or had stuff to give her. I didn't keep track. Claudia wanted to keep her, so Claudia was the one to keep track of that nonsense. I have better things to do, yeah?" He rolled his eyes at Eames' indignant stare. "Someone's gotta pay the bills, and Claudia couldn't turn tricks if the kid was sick."

Ariadne visibly recoiled, but Joshua was already turning away from them. She looked up at Eames with a troubled gaze. "We need to get Lucy to a safe place." She was already taking out her cell phone, intending to call Arthur.

He looked a little disturbed by the comment, but Eames' eyes were on Lucy as she slept in the crib. "She's so small," he murmured softly as Ariadne hit the speed dial. He was reaching out for her before he even realized it, but then withdrew his hand as soon as he saw it.

Arthur picked up the phone right away. "What's happening?" he demanded, an edge of worry in his voice.

"Short version?" Ariadne asked quietly, stepping back to be sure she didn't wake Lucy. "Turns out Eames has a child. We need to pack her up and move her in with us. She can't stay where she is right now."

There was a pause. "You're bringing her to the London apartment, then?" he asked, blowing out a breath. Ariadne could picture him jiggling his leg impatiently and tapping his pen against a notebook as he tried to rearrange timelines and juggle flight schedules in his head. "I can be there first thing in the morning, if not sooner," he said after a moment. "Do I need to contact a lawyer to be sure it's legal?"

"I don't know. Right now, she needs a place where she'll be looked after. I don't think they're really caring for her here," she murmured softly.

"They do what they can," Eames corrected, looking up from the side of the crib. "They haven't much, but they share if they can."

"Then why does it feel like they're giving her away?" Ariadne asked him softly, brows furrowed in confusion.

"Because they are," Eames replied, looking back at his daughter. "Because they never cared much for Claudia and even less for me." He looked up at Ariadne, who was ending the call with Arthur. "This is what I am, Ariadne. It disgusts you, I can tell."

She came closer and ran her hand along his spine. "This isn't you, Eames. It might be part of you, but it's not all you are. And I'm not disgusted. It's just sad. She's a little girl. She shouldn't be around this stuff."

Eames leaned back into her touch and then slung his left arm around her shoulders. It was definitely a huge change compared to months ago, when he had simply appeared in her apartment with half truths and innuendo before disappearing again. He believed she wasn't going anywhere and wasn't going to pressure him for more than he was capable of. "I don't know how to do right by her, Ariadne."

She leaned into him, tightening her arms around him. "We'll help you every step of the way, you know. You aren't going to do it alone."

He looked at her with a lost expression. "But why? She's not yours."

Ariadne pulled him down for a tender kiss. "But she's yours. That's enough for us."

Eames simply held her and watched his daughter sleep.

***

Arthur arrived in London earlier than he expected. Ariadne had sent him a picture of Lucy, and he saw the resemblance to Eames right away. He of course had found out everything he could about her before his plane touched down. Lucy Simmons was twenty-two months old, third pregnancy for Claudia Simmons but her only live birth. Claudia had an extensive legal history, mostly drug charges and petty theft, and hadn't bothered to put any name down on the birth certificate for Lucy's father. Arthur could easily go in and change the records, but it all depended on which name Eames would want on the birth certificate. He carried at least four different identities with him at all times, even if they were in between jobs and no one was actually gunning for them.

He went to the address listed as Claudia's last known place of residence. Barging right in, he found Ariadne kneeling in front of a screaming toddler and trying to placate her as Eames stalked back and forth across the kitchen with jerky strides, looking for all the world like he would rather knock holes into the walls. "What happened?" he asked, striding right up to Lucy and Ariadne.

"We're packing her things, still," Ariadne said, looking up at Arthur helplessly. "She doesn't want to go, and her bear's missing."

"It was ratty," Eames said from the kitchen. He didn't look at Lucy. "I said I'd get another."

"You didn't throw it out, did you?" Arthur asked, brows furrowing in thought as he took stock of the situation.

"'Course not," Eames snarled, spinning around to face Arthur. "What do you take me for?"

Arthur strode right up to him, not even dropping off his overnight bag slung on his shoulder. He grasped Eames by the back of the neck and kissed him thoroughly, tongue sliding into his mouth. "Think, Eames. Take a breath and put that brilliant mind of yours to use. _Think._ What do you need?"

Eames looked at him with a pained expression, which startled Arthur enough that his grip on his bag loosened and it slid down his shoulder. "I don't know. I can't... I don't know," he repeated helplessly. "I don't."

Arthur kissed him again. "Is everything packed, then?"

"Yeah. Yeah. I think we got everything. There wasn't much. The crib wasn't even hers."

Arthur turned toward the hallway to see how Ariadne was doing. Lucy's sobs had quieted, and he could see the ratty bear in question clutched in her arms. It had apparently been packed in a bag by accident. She was hesitantly sucking on a binky, and Ariadne was slowly edging forward, hands at her sides. She was talking very slowly and very softly, pitched just low enough for Lucy to hear. Lucy didn't seem to be having it, but she wasn't quite so agitated.

"I don't think she wants to leave the only home she'd ever known," Arthur said in a low tone. He grasped Eames' arm tightly. "We'll figure something out."

"Why?" Eames said sharply, blue eyes watching over Arthur's expression like a hawk.

"Idiot," Arthur hissed. "Do you really need to ask that?"

"Yeah, I do," Eames challenged.

Arthur could see the tense set in his shoulders and simply squeezed on his arm even tighter. He had thought they were past this point, but apparently not. Maybe they only danced around it, approaching trust and then falling away again without anything being ascertained. "She's your daughter, Eames."

"So? What's it to you?"

He could almost see the despair in Eames' eyes, carefully hidden behind anger. "You're mine, Eames. That means everything important to you is important to me. Now stop being an idiot. Go calm her down so we can go home."

There was a ridiculous flash of gratitude in Eames' eyes before he went to the hallway, where Lucy was at least closer to Ariadne. She was murmuring soft platitudes about how pretty Lucy's eyes were, how soft her bear must be, how nice a girl she was. Eames hunkered down beside Ariadne and caught Lucy's eye by making faces at her. Lucy abruptly stopped her mewling noises and stared at Eames. After a moment, she began to laugh. "Hey, Lucy. I'm your Dad." Her eyes were large and round. "Want to go out for a bit, eh?"

After a moment's hesitation, Lucy nodded. She grasped Eames' hand when he extended it, and the next thing he knew she had launched herself at him. Eames was clearly startled, and didn't know what Lucy might have thought a Dad meant, or if Claudia had said things about him to the girl.

Eames closed his arms around the little girl and held her in a fierce hug. Ariadne was smiling at him tenderly, and Arthur came up behind him, brushing his fingers along the back of his neck. It suddenly felt right for Eames. Perhaps he could do this after all.

***  
***


	2. Reality Setting In

Arthur had a rental car with a toddler seat strapped into the back of it. Eames gaped for a moment, carrying Lucy against his chest. She clung to him, her chubby little arms around his neck, her face tucked against his shoulder and her legs wrapped around his ribs. Lydia hadn't been that bad a caretaker for Lucy, and admitted to having a lot of help from Georgia and Rhiannon, the next door neighbors. Those two had seven children between them, three of whom were in the care system. They had gone through Lucy's belongings with Ariadne and told her whatever they knew about Lucy and Claudia. It wasn't much, but they had babysat Lucy on several occasions while Claudia was otherwise busy. She swapped cell phone numbers with the two women, thankful that they were willing to help her out.

"Poor little tyke," Rhiannon murmured from the walkway, her cigarette dangling between her fingers. "Claudia did what she could, yeah? Can't help it that all she had was her looks and doing every drug under the sun." She tapped her ashes onto the pavement and made a _humph_ sound. "I remember you, Billy Cannon," she said to Eames in lofty tones. "Thought you was too good for these estates," she continued, not noticing Ariadne's surprise at the name. If Arthur was surprised, he hid it much better. Eames continued stroking Lucy's back as if his life depended on it. "Seeing your girl and your friend here, I suppose you can be if you put your damn mind to it. Claudia thought the sun shone out of your arse, she did. Everyone told her to get rid of it once she knew, you know. She said she was going to keep it, that it was all she had of you. Josh said yesterday that you never knew of little Lucy. Seems a damn shame, if here you are with her."

"I guess we'll never know why Claudia did what she did," Eames told Rhiannon slowly.

Rhiannon rolled her eyes as she took in a deep drag from her cigarette. "You were gone and she was gone on you. Why the hell else would she have done it? Whatever business you got into that gets you fancy suits probably wouldn't have left you wandering 'round Brixton much, would it? Josh said he had to go all the way to India to find you, and Gervais had been looking for you in Paris months ago."

"So Gervais knew?" Eames asked, eyes shuttered.

Rhiannon snorted. "Don't be daft, Billy. Gervais is running guns now. He probably thought you'd help him." She threw her cigarette down to the ground and stubbed it out with the toes of her battered trainers. "He's a right idiot, that one. He'd set some gang tearing through here and shooting everyone on sight. Isn't that what happened three years ago now?" she asked rhetorically. "Bad enough Josh deals to kids, you realize. Better him than someone from some of the other estates, but I told him I'd string him up by the bollocks if he ever sold to mine."

Eames' smile was hollow. "Can't imagine he enjoyed that much."

"Not a jot, but I don't care. Them kids do all right in schools. Might go on to public school, even. I won't have him ruining that for them, not for nothing. I suppose you made good after all. You'll do right by Lucy, if you're stepping up as soon as you know about her."

"I intend to. She won't go into care."

"Good. You should take care of your own, Billy." She stepped forward and gave Lucy a soft smile. "See, Luce? Your Mum always said your Dad was a good one. Listen to all he says and be a good girl."

Eames was silent as they drove to Arthur's apartment in Kensington. It wasn't far in terms of geographic distance from Brixton, but it was worlds apart in terms of the neighborhood's character. He knew they were mentally tallying up a list of questions they would be asking later, and he felt exhausted already. Lucy had been shy with Arthur, alternately indifferent and fond of Ariadne and inordinately fond of him. Apparently Claudia had told Lucy stories about him; they had to be all lies, because Claudia hadn't really known much about him at all. He had never told them his real name, and Billy Cannon had simply been an alias he was using at the time. Gervais had been working with the gang from Bonn that was tracking him down at the time, and Eames had disappeared once Joshua had let him know Gervais was coming. Eames wasn't particularly fond of the gun runner. Three years ago, Gervais had fancied himself an assassin, and had thought that turning in Eames would get his name out as someone to go to for wet work. Eames hadn't seen him since, but he wasn't about to find out if Gervais still wanted to kill him or turn him in for a bounty.

Arthur dropped them all off at the apartment, and decided to buy furniture for Lucy that would fit in his office. It was large and spacious, so adding a toddler's bed and dresser wouldn't have even necessitated shifting around much of the furniture already in the room.

"Where are you going?" Eames hissed, frowning at Arthur as he headed back out of the apartment. "You just got here."

"Yes. And this is where we live when we're in London," Arthur told him simply, as if speaking to a small child. "So Lucy needs a bed and a place to keep her clothes. She'll need cups and plates and things that won't break." Eames dimly remembered Ariadne making up a list of things in the front passenger seat; he had been too occupied in the back with Lucy's little hand clutched tightly in his. "In the morning, we can buy more clothes and toys and things."

"The job..." Eames began to protest.

"We're still within the timetable," Arthur told him evenly.

"You can always hire someone to look over your bodies while you sleep," Ariadne offered, sitting down on the floor next to Lucy. She smiled at the toddler, who was hiding her face behind her bear. "I'll stay with Lucy. We'll color and play with blocks or something like that."

"You've babysat before?" Eames asked, starting to feel out of his depth again.

"Sort of. Lots of little cousins before I came to Paris. Our families weren't particularly close by the time I got to high school, but I'm a lot older than they are." Ariadne started playing peekaboo with Lucy, making her giggle. Ariadne looked up at Eames with a confident smile. "We'll be okay. There's three of us to figure out the schedule, you know. It'll work out."

Arthur clapped Eames on the back, leaning into his personal space. "Relax. Just another plan, right? Let me get the details and overall plan in place."

"I'm the one that does a lot of the more difficult planning."

"And I find the holes in them," Arthur agreed. "Sooner I go get what we need, the sooner I'll be back. You can take care of dinner while I'm gone, right?"

Eames scowled at Arthur. "That's quite the condescending thing to say."

"Oh, I'm sure we're capable of worse things," Arthur replied mildly. He nodded at Eames and stepped back, heading for the door. "I shouldn't take too long, then."

Lucy was giggling at Ariadne, and Eames tried not to feel as if the girl was a traitor. After all, Ariadne was a bubbling font of love and imagination. Eames wanted Lucy to feel at home with these two people in his life. They were too important to him, even if he couldn't say the words. He felt hollow most of the time, but being with them made him feel almost too comfortable, as if somehow he lived in three dimensions if either of them were around. He had tried staying away for about a week after they had all firmed their commitments to each other in Manila a few months ago. He was more miserable than he had expected to be. True to their word, Arthur and Ariadne hadn't questioned the move. They'd asked with polite interest where he had gone and what he had done, and when he didn't want to discuss it, they hadn't pressed.

He could run if he wanted to, and they would still be right there. He couldn't even resent them for it, since it was exactly what he had asked for. It wasn't their fault that he found the concept frightening and suspicious at once. After all, people didn't stay around in his life for very long. Invariably, someone fucked it up and then he was alone again. Either they left or he did, but the result was always the same.

Eames hunkered down on the floor beside Ariadne. "Hey, Lucy," he murmured. Those blue eyes turned to him, and his gut clenched. He couldn't do this. He had no idea how to be a father. He was going to fuck this up. He was going to ruin her life.

"That's Daddy," Ariadne was telling Lucy, smiling. "I'm Ariadne," she was repeating. Lucy couldn't say much more than "Ari," which Eames had found hilarious before. Now he found it just sad that Lucy couldn't call anyone "Mum" ever again.

"Firsty," Lucy said, looking at Eames with those large blue eyes of hers.

"Uh..."

"We can try a cup," Ariadne said, starting to get to her feet. "A small amount, since they only had sippy cups. Arthur's going to buy some."

"Sippy cup," Eames repeated, looking at Lucy's hopeful face. He hadn't even understood what she had said.

Ariadne held out her hand for Lucy. "Let's take a walk to the kitchen, Lucy. What do you want to drink?" she asked, careful to enunciate clearly.

"Juicy," she cried, clambering to her feet. She held her bear in one chubby fist and grasped hold of Ariadne's hand with her other one. They walked to the kitchen, and Eames got to his feet as well. He watched Ariadne's soft smile widen when Lucy tried to open the fridge on her own, but couldn't pull it. "Juicy, juicy, juicy," Lucy chanted, looking at the fridge in despair. "Deah get juicy," she wailed, starting to bang on the door.

Eames swooped in before Ariadne could say anything. He picked up the girl and swung her about, making her squeal and laugh. "You're flying, Lucy. A super baby!"

He caught Ariadne's fond smile as she started mixing a frozen container of fruit juice. None of them had been in the apartment recently, so there was nothing but frozen foods and dried goods that wouldn't go bad in their absence. "We can find some things you like better in a bit, Lucy," she said, putting some of the mixture into a cup. "We should probably go out to dinner, since there isn't much in the house. Rhiannon mentioned a few of the things she generally liked to eat."

Lucy could hold the cup, but a lot of the juice spilled out of the sides when she brought it to her face. Ariadne calmly got a paper towel to clean her face, and tried again. Eames guided the cup to her mouth, and she was able to drink a little more of it. He didn't even notice the splash of the juice on his shirt. Lucy was grinning at him and chortling "I did it!"

Ariadne giggled and poured a little more into the cup. "Such a good girl," she said, handing the cup back to them.

Going slowly, Lucy managed to get a good amount of juice swallowed. Lucy accepted Eames' sudden kiss to her cheek, but then kicked at him. "Down!" she cried imperiously, pointing.

"We'll work on manners," Ariadne told Eames ruefully as Lucy raced out of the kitchen to launch herself at the leather sofa. She patted at his shirt with the paper towel and shook her head fondly. "The sofa should be easy enough to clean, and I think the floors being hardwood helps." She winced at the sound of books flying. "We'll have to move some of the other things in there, though."

By the time Arthur came back with bags and boxes of things, most of the books within easy reach of Lucy's questing, sticky hands were moved into piles on upper shelves. Ariadne's colored pencils and sheets of printer paper were scattered on the floor, and Lucy was chattering away happily as she scribbled or drew lines on the paper. She only knew the colors red and blue and didn't recognize any shapes. "I have no idea if that's important," Ariadne admitted to Eames when he looked at her in concern. "But it gives us something to do with her, right?" She looked back at Lucy's scribbling. "Oh! That's a lovely purple, honey."

Eames had to help Arthur assemble the toddler bed and dresser. "I suppose I can't handle dinner after all," Eames remarked, looking around the mess of the office in the apartment.

Arthur rolled his eyes. "You do realize all I meant was where we going to go out, right? There isn't anything here to cook, really." He looked over the frame of the bed, aware of Lucy and Ariadne going through his other purchases. "There's a lot of _stuff_ that goes into having children in the house," he remarked, looking over the mess. "It's not just logistics, but sheer amounts of _stuff."_

"So how'd you get back so soon?"

"I found a salesperson, gave her Ariadne's list and said money was no object." He grinned at Eames' snort. "The clerk was very helpful once I said that."

Dinner turned out to be macaroni and cheese, carrots and chocolate milk for everyone. Ariadne ran to the market to pick up a few things as Lucy looked through all the bags and threw her clothes around the office, laughing and running around. Arthur hadn't gotten a booster seat, so the four of them sat around the coffee table to eat dinner. He managed not to wince at the smeared cheese across the floor and couch. Lucy ate with her hands, squishing food everywhere. She did know what a spoon was, though she held it awkwardly in either hand and refused to let anyone feed her. "I do it!" she insisted, glaring at any adult that dared to insist otherwise.

"That's all you," Arthur commented to Eames dryly, making Ariadne snicker.

Lucy settled down after a bath and reading to her. Eames selected The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe from Arthur's shelves to read, sitting on the floor beside the brand new bed to do so. Lucy had her binky and her bear, as well as brand new pajamas and blankets. She seemed to handle this transition well, though Eames still looked at her with a frown. How many different people had there been, walking into and out of her life so that it didn't matter to her? Arthur wouldn't be able to track that down, but it bothered him. Lucy fell asleep partway through the second chapter of the book, and Eames continued to sit there. _I have a daughter,_ he thought, feeling an odd ache in his chest. _I know fuck-all what to do about this._

"Hey," Ariadne called softly. "Arthur's heading out."

Panic flared in Eames' chest, though he never would have admitted it. "What?"

"Research on the subject. If we can't get the sister for you to forge, we can possibly try a different angle with the business partner," Arthur said, standing in the doorway as he buttoned up his jacket.

"What do you mean? That I can't forge the sister?" Eames asked, heading toward Arthur. That irrational spike of anger was back.

"She's in Calcutta with her husband. We're here, and the brother is based out of Wales. It makes more sense to switch focus so we'll be around for Lucy."

Eames blinked. It was such a rational and thought out answer, and it took into consideration a child's comfort. He wasn't used to that at all, and hadn't thought Arthur would even want to do that. "What do we know about the bloke?"

"Next to nothing useful," Arthur said wryly. "So I'm going to fix that. I should be back in a few hours, once I've hunted down a few contacts."

Eames watched him go, expression blank even though he felt lost. He didn't even notice Ariadne beside him, a thoughtful expression on her face. He startled when she tugged on his arm, leading him into the living room after shutting the door to Lucy's room. "But!"

"Video monitor," Ariadne said, indicating the little device sitting on the coffee table. The volume was low, but they could still clearly hear Lucy breathing. "We'll keep an eye on her, but she can still sleep soundly."

She sat him down on the couch; its back faced the doors to the bedroom. He merely stared at her incredulously as she unbuckled his pants and instructed him to lift his hips. "Eames, she's asleep and you're wound up." Ariadne quirked her lips into a smile as she waved a foil packet in front of him. "Aren't you the one that said this was the best way to relax?" she teased.

Eames stared at her as she licked her lips, kneeling in front of his sprawled form. "Lucy's asleep, Ariadne," he said, sounding anxious even to his own ears.

"I'll just have to be quiet," she murmured, shimmying out of her own clothes. Before he could say anything else, she took him into her mouth. Her lips were pressed up against his abdomen, and her hands were at his waist, stroking him gently. Eames ran his hands lightly along the back of her head, then moved to touch the slope of her shoulders. When he was too big for her to comfortably fit into her mouth, she moved to feather kisses along his stomach and unbuttoned his shirt to get it out of her way. Eames stroked her breasts and back, a vulnerable expression on his face as he looked at her. Ariadne clambered up to straddle him and kissed his neck and jaw. "We're going to be okay," she murmured softly as he continued to touch her. Her own breathing was labored, and she was slick with need.

"Why do you say that?" he asked as she rolled on a condom.

Ariadne sank down over him and leaned forward to kiss his lips softly. "Because we're together," she told him softly. She started to rock against him, slowly at first. "We're going to do whatever we can to make it work," she murmured, leaning forward and grasping the back of the couch for balance. "Because we love each other."

"It's not enough," Eames told her, grasping her hips and urging her to move faster.

She bit her lip to keep from groaning at the feel of him. "That's... why we... try," she gasped, trying to keep from making too much noise. She smiled at him, her lower lip caught between her teeth. She closed her eyes and took deep breaths as he shifted his head forward and caught her nipple between his lips and tugged gently. "Not fair," she gasped.

"This was your idea," he grunted. He moved one hand to slide between them, finding her slicked clit and rubbing it in time with her down strokes. "I'm just playing along."

Ariadne was close when Eames let out a muffled groan. She tried to continue moving, but he hissed at the intensity of the sensation and she stopped. This was more about him, anyway. She touched her forehead to his, watching him struggle to breathe. "Better?" she asked.

"Don't know," he told her honestly. He tried not to think about what that meant, that he could be honest with her about that sort of thing and not expect reprisals. She was a safer target, likely; he knew she would never use anything against him. It wasn't her style.

Arthur, on the other hand, had a mind like a steel trap. Eames was never sure what would trigger that trap to spring shut.

Ariadne wrapped her arms around him when he was in the bathroom washing up. She kissed his spine and then pressed her cheek against his back. "Hey. It's early yet. What do you want to do?"

He turned around in her embrace. "Nothing where I really have to think," he admitted.

"Then you watch a movie or something, and I'll read the parenting books." She laughed at his startled expression. "It's Arthur wanting to be prepared. He already got five or six books on raising a toddler."

"Jesus Christ," Eames murmured, staring at her numbly. "I didn't think this would happen."

"It's _Arthur._ Did you really think he'd try to do it by the seat of his pants?"

"No," he said softly, "I suppose not."

He peeked over her shoulder as she was reading about normal toddler development, trying to figure out if Lucy fell within normal ranges. What did he know about children, after all? What did he know about responsibility?

They were getting ready for bed when Arthur returned home, looking more irritated than exhausted. "I have to wait," he said by way of explanation. He simply shed his clothes and climbed into bed beside Eames. "Not much else for it right now. How did the evening go?"

"Read one of the books and watched telly," Eames replied. He looked up at the ceiling, not wanting to imagine concern on Arthur's face. It felt almost like he was trapping Arthur somehow, even if Arthur had always been willing to give more in their relationship. _This isn't what I intended,_ he thought, keeping his panic down. It was irrational and primal, and he knew he couldn't simply react to it. He was cool and collected, a talker and an easygoing con artist. He normally could figure his way through a maze of relationships, could cut to the heart of the matter and see people for what they truly were.

His gift was gone at the moment. It had short circuited the moment Joshua had found him in the Calcutta market, damn him to hell.

Arthur touched his shoulder as Ariadne curled up into his other side, her hand running along his chest. "Anything I need to look at? I haven't read them yet."

Eames shifted his eyes to Arthur's concerned face, taking in the furrow of his brow. So serious, so steadfast. How had they all fallen together like this? He couldn't even recall now how it happened, how starting them on this path led to them being a solid unit. Ariadne was supposed to fill Arthur's need for commitment and serve as the emotional buffer between them. Eames had always liked her, but hadn't expected to _need_ her as much as he did.

Ariadne might not have realized it, but that gave her power over him. Arthur had the same power over him, even if the point man never realized it. Eames had made sure of it.

Eames needed to be around for Lucy's sake, to keep her out of the care homes, but he didn't know how to be a father. He didn't know how to be a real person the way they did. "It was all new and strange, like learning a new language," he began. It sounded lame and pathetic, and it was only made worse by the sympathy in Arthur's eyes. Dammit, he was better than this. He could be heartless and cold, could do what needed to be done. Why couldn't he do this?

"I can't fuck up her life, Arthur. But I can't let her go to a home either. Sometimes there's good sorts in the system, sometimes they care. Sometimes they really don't. Sometimes they're only interested in the tax credits."

"You sound like you know," he said quietly, fingers sliding down Eames' shoulder. Arthur's voice carried no inflection, no recrimination.

"I never had a father," Eames told him flatly. "Nothing on my birth certificate if you ever found it, same as Claudia did with Lucy's." There was no change in Arthur's expression, no shift toward pity. "Mum died when I was four, and I never had a steady father figure before that. There were the different blokes that tried when I was in care, but most didn't give a shit. Most didn't notice if I was gone or not."

"We're not going to be that way," Arthur told him firmly. "We do care, and we would notice."

"You don't know her," Eames told him, brows furrowing. _"I_ don't know her."

"She's a beautiful girl that looks just like you. She laughs a lot, likes purple and macaroni and cheese," Ariadne piped up beside him. She rose up onto one elbow to look at him. "She's _two,_ Eames. We'll get to know her as she grows up."

Long term, then. Both of them thought in long term plans. He had always known it of them, had always known that they could complement each other in that way. They took it for granted that people would always be there, that long term plans were necessary. It had always seemed like a horrible prospect; it was easier to disappear if there were few ties. He was tied to these two somehow, and now he had a daughter. He couldn't just leave. He couldn't just put on a new name and face and disappear somewhere.

He was unsettled by this entire situation, more than he could put into words. The circumstances required that he put on a more permanent mask, that he become something different from what he had been. Eames had once himself been cast adrift into the world and had found his own way. He didn't know how to guide a child through it.

Eames accepted their gentle kisses and touches. It was easier not to resist, and he needed them to help with Lucy. He didn't know how he could do it alone.

***  
***


	3. Strugging With Choices

"I didn't see my father much growing up," Arthur said in a conversational tone of voice as the trio took Lucy shopping the following morning. The toddler loved the bright colors of the toys and grasped at everything, gleefully saying "I want!" and pointing to various things. She gave Eames shy, hopeful glances as she held the toys Ariadne handed her, as if she wasn't quite used to holding new things.

Eames turned to Arthur. "Oh?" They had never really talked of the past out of tacit agreement. It felt odd to break it now, as if Eames was somehow beholden to him for the secret.

"He was Army," Arthur continued, before reaching for a bucket of Duplo blocks off of the shelf. "We got dragged around if there was a base we could stay in. I learned a lot of languages that way, a lot about discipline. Not a lot about who he was. I never met the great man people talked to me about."

"What happened?"

"Killed in action when I was fifteen," Arthur replied, looking at him and shrugging. It wasn't a painless admission, Eames could tell. It was a matter of fact, however, and one that Arthur took as simply another facet of who he was. "Maybe I would have found out someday."

"And your Mum?"

"Quiet," Arthur said, shrugging again. "She's in the States, and I visit her sometimes. We haven't been particularly close since my father died."

"Why not?" Eames asked, curious. He found it odd that Arthur could have family and simply not speak to his mother. Well, he knew it happened, of course. He played off of that all the time when he ran cons, but Arthur had always seemed above that, somehow.

"I look like him," Arthur told Eames flatly. "She can't bear to see me for too long." He smiled at Lucy when she looked up in distress, her eyes large. Ariadne returned with a doll, which distracted Lucy enough to smile and play with it as they continued down the toy aisle.

"I'm sorry," Eames murmured. That was the sort of thing you said to family tragedies, even if you were distant from them.

"It happened a long time ago," Arthur said, suppressing a sigh. He looked over at Eames with clear, practical eyes. Somehow Eames was more reassured to see that. "And both of Ariadne's parents are dead now, so there isn't much help there, either."

"We're on our own."

"We might have been anyway," Arthur pointed out. "The relationship we have isn't exactly an ordinary one, after all."

"It works, you said," Eames replied. There was no change in expression or tone, nothing to betray his growing unease.

"Yes. It works for us, but the outside world wouldn't understand it, you know." Arthur looked at Ariadne, a fond smile creeping onto his face. "But then, nothing about us is ordinary in the slightest, is it?"

Eames couldn't help but smile. "Why should it be? Ordinary is boring, darling."

Arthur laughed, agreeing with Eames. "I think we have enough toys for now, Lucy," he declared, looking over the contents of the cart. "Time for clothes and shoes."

"Shoes," Lucy echoed, kicking out with her feet. She held the doll Ariadne had found for her, tag still clipped to the plush wrist. Lucy managed to catch Eames in the hip, making him sidestep her. She laughed and kicked again, saying "I kick, I kick, I kick," repeatedly.

Eames grabbed her ankle without thinking. Lucy blinked up at him owlishly and tugged on her leg. When he didn't let go right away, she started to bawl. She threw the doll at him and started to scream "Want Mummy! Want Mummy!" as she kicked her feet out of the cart.

He'd heard of mercurial moods, but this was ridiculous. "Lucy," Eames tried to say in his calmest voice. He couldn't remember what prior caretakers had ever tried with him, because most hadn't bothered or he had simply run out of the house.

She ignored him anyway, continuing to wail and sob as she kicked her feet. He tried picking her up, but she only struggled in his arms and pushed at his chest. "Mummy! Mummy! Mummy!" she wailed, kicking Eames.

"Is everything okay?" a shop assistant asked, approaching cautiously.

Eames bit back the urge to snap at her. "Not hardly," he managed to say, doing his best to hold onto the squirming child.

"Perhaps her Mum," the clerk suggested, looking toward Ariadne.

"Her Mum's dead," Eames snapped, managing to grab hold of Lucy, who nearly tumbled out of his grasp. "Just happened."

"Oh. And with her too young yet to understand..." The clerk made a sympathetic clucking noise, and Eames was glad for her sake that he was holding Lucy. He would've been tempted to punch her across the face otherwise. This entire situation was making him feel out of his depth, and he was starting to wonder why in God's name he had even briefly thought he could do this. Seeing Ariadne and Arthur looking so calm in comparison didn't help.

The clerk bent down and picked up the doll that Lucy had thrown. "Oh, what a pretty little dolly, poppet," she said, waving it into Lucy's line of vision. She batted it away, making a face at the clerk. "Shall you hold the doll?"

Ariadne saw Lucy scowl at the clerk and rummaged about in the shopping trolley. "I have a coloring book," she offered, grabbing the book in question.

Lucy stuck out her lower lip and turned away from the clerk to snatch the book from Ariadne. The clerk handed the doll to Arthur and excused herself now that the fit of temper seemed to be over with. "No like it," Lucy declared, turning to glare at the clerk.

Eames suddenly laughed and smiled at Lucy. "She was a daft one, wasn't she, Lucy?"

Lucy giggled and Arthur rolled his eyes. "Figures she has your sense of humor," he said dryly.

The rest of the shopping trip was uneventful. There were new clothes, socks, shoes, hat and jacket for the upcoming autumn chill. Passing through the DVD area, Arthur and Ariadne started going through the videos to see what might be appropriate for Lucy, as neither had any idea what children's shows were available on the BBC. It was a reminder for Arthur to actually pay the subscription fees; because he normally wasn't in London full time, he had never bothered to do so before. Lucy pointed at various things that had bright colors, gleefully saying "I want it!"

"We're going to spoil her rotten," Eames said darkly, seeing the overfull shopping trolley. Lucy was waving around the doll in one hand and her tatty bear in the other. He smiled fondly when she looked up at him with large eyes.

"We don't have anything in the apartment for a toddler," Ariadne told him, smoothing down the back of Lucy's hair. She turned and stuck out her lower lip at Ariadne, making a little pouting face before laughing at Ariadne's startled expression. "It's not like we're going to buy her everything she wants all the time."

Eames looked at the shopping cart. He'd never had this much growing up, and it seemed frightfully excessive to him. Children always seemed to do all right with chalk and a ball outside, didn't they? He looked at Arthur when he stroked his arm soothingly. "It'll be all right. I've started reading about normal childhood development. Memories generally consolidate when children are three."

"So she won't remember Claudia at all."

"She'll remember whatever you tell her."

Lucy was babbling nonsense strings of words; it almost sounded like she was trying to sing a Lily Allen song. "I hardly knew Claudia," Eames admitted, looking at her. There was barely anything of Claudia in Lucy's facial features.

"After this job is complete, I can look into things if you want."

Eames looked at Arthur. It was his usual impassive face, with clear guileless eyes. He would really do it if Eames asked him to. Just as he was doing all of this without Eames specifically asking him to. Arthur simply did whatever he thought was necessary to the task at hand, never once complaining about it. Eames had always taken that for granted before, knowing that Arthur was an anchor in his otherwise shifting life.

Now it made him feel like shit.

"If Lucy wants to know about her," he said finally, starting to push the cart toward checkout. He looked over at Ariadne, who was studiously pretending not to listen in. "We're her family now, yeah? She should know about us."

"Then I'll start the necessary paperwork to make sure it's legal. You'll have to tell me which name you want to use."

Too many names behind him, and too many possible names in front of him. Neither Arthur nor Ariadne had ever asked for his real name. They accepted what he told them at face value. Hell, Ariadne never even asked for a first name to go with Eames.

"Might as well keep to the same last name as hers," Eames began slowly. "Use Aaron as a first name," he said as they got into the checkout queue. "It's the one I was born with. She should have something real."

Arthur nodded and didn't question it. Ariadne leaned against Eames and smiled at Lucy, making the toddler laugh. For a moment, he wondered if he should demand more from them, some kind of response for the admission he had just made. He was almost angry, but as he watched Arthur and Ariadne put all of their purchases on the conveyor belt, he realized that this had been exactly what he wanted from them before. He never wanted them to make a big deal about their triad relationship, never wanted to have them indicate that they wanted more from him than he was willing to give. He had everything he had wanted from them.

It wasn't their fault it suddenly wasn't enough. It was his.

***

Eames looked over the information Arthur managed to find on their subject's business partner in Wales, as well as other family members in England who might be easier to forge. Their subject was a top level executive in charge of research and development in a pharmaceutical company, and there were rumors about recent breakthroughs. A rival company was paying top dollar to get more information regarding those breakthroughs; it would take months to years before any new research would make it to a field trial, so there was time enough for their team to do the job with the level of precision necessary. Daniel Warner was another administrator in charge of that site's R&D. They would be more likely to talk about recent developments in the labs than with family members, though Marcus trusted his sister and his ex-wife implicitly. The ex-wife was military, however, and would be too difficult to be able to observe mannerisms. The sister who he had been studying in Calcutta was part of the Doctors Without Borders program, and had been easy enough to follow. Now that it was out of the question, Eames headed to Wales to get a feel for the partner instead.

He didn't want to go, however. It was ridiculous, given that he had traipsed about Wales plenty of times and actually liked the rolling green countryside. He knew it was because of Lucy, because he felt responsible for her care even if he knew fuckall what to do. Arthur and Ariadne were falling all over themselves to teach Lucy things. She was like a little parrot or sponge, absorbing names of body parts and colors and shapes, furniture and food. Ariadne kept her work sketchbooks out of reach, but otherwise built skyscrapers out of blocks with her and played with the dolls. Arthur ordered some kind of program online that would allow him to teach her to read, and other materials to try to start teaching her French and German. He never did things halfway, which didn't seem quite as awful as it did now.

Eames read to her at night. He was the only one that she liked combing her hair in the morning and putting in the barrettes or hair ties to keep her hair out of her eyes. When she fussed over getting dressed, he was able to make her laugh just by crossing his eyes at her. He was almost done with the Narnia book, and Lucy seemed to like falling asleep to the sound of his voice. How could he leave her like this?

At bath time, Lucy splashed around in the tub, playing with the bubbles. Ariadne was kneeling on the floor beside the tub, helping her wash. She made a game out of learning the body parts, and Arthur was seated on the closed toilet lid, adding French and German translations for her to repeat. Eames stayed in the doorway, watching them work with her as she splashed happily and rubbed bubbles into the tiles. Until they had specifically bought baby bubble bath and shampoo, they had used Ariadne's shower gel and shampoo. Not too much difference in Eames' point of view, but Arthur had stressed doing things the _right way_ with Lucy.

He never had any of these things growing up. Look at how he turned out, he wanted to say. Of course, he had been in and out of trouble since childhood, and a stint in the military hadn't burned that out of him. If anything, it broadened his horizons internationally and gave him an additional and very lethal skill set.

Ariadne was saying something about potty training, and Eames nearly bolted. What did he know about that? Sure, Arthur had ordered a book and a DVD about it. Eames had wanted to laugh at the sheer amount of research he was doing about parenting, but he couldn't. Arthur was going out of his way for a child that wasn't even his. So was Ariadne. Eames felt a fondness for Lucy and an obligation. Even so, sometimes he wanted to disappear into the ether, try on a new name and forget this had ever happened. At other times, he was grateful for the research, as if this was simply another role for him to learn how to play.

"Time to rinse!" Ariadne chirped happily. They did this routine every night, and Lucy seemed to adapt to it remarkably well. She called Eames Daddy, Ariadne Ari and Arthur was "Thur," since she couldn't quite get his name completely right.

It was so frighteningly domestic. Eames alternately wanted it and loathed it.

Lucy giggled as Ariadne toweled her off. Eames was holding her pajamas, a pink thing with red hearts printed on it, attached feet and a zipper across the front. "Pink! I like it!" Lucy said, grinning up at him.

Had he ever been so innocent? He rather doubted it.

Ariadne got her diaper on and then it was up to Eames to dress Lucy and carry her over to bed to read more of the story that would help her fall asleep. He had started it, she loved it, and she didn't even fall out of her toddler bed. Everyone seemed pleased with the routine. It wasn't anyone else's fault that he felt trapped by it and itched to run as far away as he could.

After she was settled to sleep, Eames looked over at Arthur. "Wales."

"However long you need to observe," he responded evenly.

There were new sketches and designs Ariadne was doing, as they altered their original game plan to address the business partner. She looked up from where she was spreading her things out over the coffee table. It didn't seem to trouble her in the slightest that she was stacking coloring books and a stuffed animal beneath the coffee table. Eames found his eyes going back to the Tinkerbell design on the cover, the beaded eyes of the animal. How could they do this with a child? How could he cut and run if he needed to?

Ties were dangerous. They were strangleholds, tripwires, garrotes.

"She'll be fine," Arthur continued when Eames didn't say anything. "We'll be here with her."

Eames looked up, eyes flashing. "So I'm just another person in her life leaving? Just someone else that won't ever stay?"

He frowned at Eames in concern. "I never said that. I wasn't even thinking it."

Ariadne looked up from the design, a troubled expression on her face. Apparently she hadn't been thinking it, either. Eames scrubbed at his face tiredly and sat down on the couch with a gusty sigh. _I can't do this,_ he wanted to say, but he didn't know what _this_ would refer to. There was a restlessness buzzing beneath his skin, one he didn't know how to get rid of without leaving and becoming someone else.

Coming to sit beside him, Ariadne slipped her hand to rest along his thigh. "You're doing everything you can. We can still work and take care of Lucy at the same time. That's what day care is for. We can find a good place, one you feel comfortable with, one we think is safe enough in case anyone connects her with us."

Eames looked up tiredly, taking in her earnest expression and the determined, hardened one on Arthur's. He opened his mouth to speak, but he had no idea what to even say. "I..."

"You may not know how to be a father," Arthur said softly, putting down his notebook, "but you know how _not_ to be one."

"Hardly any better," Eames said sarcastically.

"It is," Ariadne disagreed. "It isn't just from good examples that you learn, you know. You of all people know how important the unsaid things are. You of all people know that it's as much about _how_ you do things as _what_ you do."

Oh, Jesus. Getting coaching on parenting from Ariadne just felt belittling. It was on the tip of Eames' tongue to simply yell at her for her presumption.

She moved to take his hand in hers, and she gripped it tightly, distracting him. "You're not doing it alone, you know. It's not like we have any idea what to do either."

"It doesn't look like it," Eames told her, sarcasm and bitterness flowing freely.

"Parenting is guiding someone," Arthur said quietly, leaning forward in his chair. He had his elbows on his knees, that intense look on his face. It was the only thing keeping him from looking like a baby faced child. "It's not an exact science. Why else would there be so many books and websites and discussion about it? We've never done this before, but we're all going to try our best. That's the part that matters."

He knew why, too. Because Lucy was his daughter, because otherwise she was an orphan, because both of them couldn't simply stand aside when it would be safer to save their own skins and avoid taking on another problem.

He didn't want to need them as much as he did. Ariadne might have thought she was the extra one in this relationship, but he knew that they wouldn't be bothered for very long if he simply disappeared. Arthur could exist perfectly well on his own. He had for years before Eames came along, and he would persist long after Eames was gone.

Ariadne kissed his cheek. "Think of it this way. You know exactly what to look out for. You know all the tricks, all the things that could get her into trouble. It doesn't have to happen, because you'll know what to do ahead of time."

"I need to go," Eames said abruptly, disentangling himself from Ariadne. He stood as Arthur leaned back in his chair, eyes shuttered. He stalked over to the table, aware of their eyes on his back as he snatched up the folder about Warner. "We have a job to do."

The conversation wasn't over, not by a long shot, but at least he had bought himself a little time.

***

Wales was full of beautiful rolling hills, placid people, rain and one Daniel Warner that was difficult to corner closely, no matter what Eames did. He sent Ariadne photos that she might want to use in her designs and the occasional snarky, oblique text to Arthur. There were no updates on Warner because there wasn't much to update. He didn't mention his frustration with being apart from Lucy, but it probably made the sarcasm worse in his texts than it really had to be. He still texted them. It was enough that they would know he hadn't completely gone to ground. He was _working,_ after all. This was different. For all that people thought he was a thief and a liar, he at least was a reliable one.

Arthur sent him an e-mail with their list of goals for Lucy. Eames tried not to roll his eyes at the tasks Arthur had determined were necessary for Lucy's education. The girl wasn't even quite two years old. Did she really need language lessons? Did she really need to know the alphabet or numbers or colors or shapes or body parts? Did she really need to take gymnastics or swimming lessons or start on a keyboard?

Ariadne returned his photos with photos of Lucy. _misses daddy. We all do._

Eames nearly broke down and simply called her to ask to talk to Lucy, but he forced himself to put the phone down. No call in getting worked up over this. He hadn't even known she existed a month ago. There was no reason why she would become so important so quickly.

But he had her photo in his wallet, pictures on his phone, and a recording of her laughingly saying "I did it!"

Bloody hell. How had he turned into one of those soppy parents without his noticing?

He was a dozen different people and no one at once. People like that weren't good role models, weren't steady enough to be a parent. His earliest memory was of one of the foster families, getting hit across the face for breaking a table in a tantrum. What the hell kind of father figure could he be? He didn't know what fathers did. He was too busy running from the foster homes and avoiding being in care. He was too busy running to avoid thinking.

Daniel Warner was a single man in his fifties, his entire life devoted to the research lab. If he regretted the decision, there was no way to tell. If he felt lonely, Eames didn't get a sense of it as he moved and talked in the lab. He worked until late, came home to his tiny flat, had dinner and then went to bed. Then the day began again.

It was difficult to get a handle on his motives because he didn't seem to have any. He honestly seemed to only care about work.

Eames caught sight of his reflection in his phone. He hadn't even realized that he had picked it up. It should have troubled him that he wasn't able to track his own movements, that he was distracted. But he had his USP Compact snug against his ribs, just in case, his phone in hand and a jumbled storm in the back of his mind.

He imagined Lucy's smile, the blue eyes flashing at him beneath her messy blonde hair. He could hear her yelling at him to put her down, could see her smacking Arthur if he didn't get her cereal for her fast enough in the mornings, could see her splashing Ariadne in the face when getting her bath. He didn't know what Claudia had done with her before, but she had to have done something right for Lucy to be such a smiling and happy little girl. Lord only knew how, because Claudia had been a silly, stupid, selfish bint. She had cared about her flashy gold earrings and how low cut her top was, how much her thighs showed beneath her skirts. She had taken to Billy Cannon only too easily, falling beneath the spell of an easy smile and lies that couldn't stop slithering off of his tongue.

Somehow, Claudia got it right. Somehow, she had pulled it all together to be a mother. Could he somehow do the same?

Pacing across his hotel room, he flipped a coin. Heads, he called. Tails, he didn't.

Tails. Tails. Tails. Heads.

Eames sighed as he flipped open his phone and dialed Arthur's flat. "Hullo, darling," he said as soon as the phone was picked up. He didn't try to stop the smile that crossed his face. "Just wanted to hear your voice."

***  
***


	4. Welcome Home

"Who are you and what in sodding hell have you done with my daughter?"

Arthur was in a stained T shirt and jeans, feet bare as he held Lucy and careened around the living room with her in his arms. Lucy was in something that wasn't quite a nappy, Eames had no idea what the hell it was, laughing and kicking her feet. There was paint spattered on the floor, and Arthur wasn't cleaning it up.

Eames had just stepped into an alternate dimension. He was dreaming. This couldn't be real.

Arthur stopped the whirling he was doing, and slung Lucy around his shoulders. The toddler grabbed at his face, shrieking in his ear. "You're early," Arthur said, not seeming perturbed in the slightest. "I thought you were coming back tomorrow night."

"I needed to come home early," Eames said, eying the disaster of the living room warily. The television was on, with some brightly colored show with repetitive music on. "What is that shite?" he asked, pointing. "That voice is so abrasive my eardrums are going to rupture."

Lucy's lower lip shot out as Eames' irritated tone finally seemed to compute. She began to bawl, large tears rolling down her cheeks. Arthur shot Eames a disgusted look, then spun Lucy around to hold her. He simply held her for a while, until she got antsy and pushed at his chest. Arthur put her down on the floor, and she immediately made a beeline for Eames. She clung to his leg and looked up with her quivering lip and tearful eyes.

With a sigh, Eames put down his bag and picked her up. "What's all this?"

"Making decorations for her birthday party," Arthur said, indicating the colored pages on the coffee table that Eames had missed. In Arthur's careful block lettering was _Happy Birthday Lucy!_ across some of them. There was no inflection or castigation in Arthur's voice, but Eames felt it anyway. "It's going to be just us, but she should still have a party."

"Oh." Eames looked from Arthur to Lucy, the irrational feelings from earlier bleeding out of him. "What _is_ she wearing?"

"Pull ups," Arthur replied. "She's two, so we're starting potty training."

"She's practically naked, then."

"She got paint on her shirt."

Lucy smacked Eames on the back of his head. "Don pwease!" she insisted, wriggling in Eames' arms. He did as she asked, and she went back to coloring on the sheets, her earlier tears forgotten other than the occasional sniffles.

Eames looked from Lucy to Arthur. "She says please."

"Took some doing," Arthur replied, a faint air of smugness in his tone. "It was on the list I sent you, you know."

"She's two."

"They're not stupid. Minds are very malleable at that age. She just needed a little one on one attention to help foster that."

It was surreal, but Arthur seemed almost proud of that. "But..."

Ignoring him, Arthur stepped forward and pulled Eames against him into a kiss. Startled, Eames merely held Arthur's arms, lips parting. Arthur deepened the kiss, tongue sliding into Eames' mouth to touch his. Eames had missed this while he was gone, as much as he had missed Lucy's giggles and Ariadne's bent head next to hers.

The two men merely stared at each other for a moment. Eames didn't know what to say. _I suppose you missed me after all_ was a little too obnoxious and demeaning. _I needed that_ was too smug. He settled on a smile, and was rewarded by a loosening in Arthur's shoulders and the slide of his hand along Eames' arm.

"I take it everything went well in Wales?" Arthur asked, still touching Eames' arm.

"Yeah. Warner isn't much for anything but working all day. No particular additional insights for the subject, but I can see why they get on so well." Eames paused and looked at Lucy, scribbling happily on a piece of paper. "Perhaps we should talk later?"

Arthur shrugged and followed Eames' gaze to Lucy. "Well, most of it would be over her head, but we can table it for later if you like."

Lucy looked up, as if she knew the two men were looking at her. "Color me!" she said, banging the table with one chubby fist.

"What?"

"She means color _with_ me," Arthur said, moving to sit cross-legged on the floor. Eames followed suit, not sure if he had ever seen Arthur this casual. Being naked didn't count; Arthur never seemed ashamed or embarrassed by his body, and seemed to wear his bare skin like a full formal tuxedo.

The three of them were still coloring when Ariadne got back from the market with shopping bags full of groceries and a bakery bag in hand. She nearly dropped them when she saw Eames, and the look of pure joy made his earlier doubts about returning early evaporate. "You're home!" she cried, delighted. She managed to put the bags down carefully enough without breaking anything, and she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him soundly.

"Missed me, then?"

"Yes," she said, then kissed him again. She playfully mussed Lucy's hair, earning herself an annoyed swat from the toddler, and then went off to put the groceries away. "There's dessert for tonight and cake for tomorrow," she called out.

Lucy brightened up as soon as she heard that. "Cake?" she looked at Arthur and Eames hopefully, a wide grin on her face. "Cake!"

"You _had_ to say the C word?" Arthur groused playfully.

Ariadne merely laughed in the kitchen, then came to the door, a box of pasta in hand. "Well, we know it'll make her finish dinner, so it'll all work out."

Eames looked between the two of them and Lucy, stunned at how easygoing they seemed to be with the situation. "So, poppet," he said, smiling at Lucy. "I missed you."

Lucy turned her bright smile toward him. "I miss you. Too."

He didn't even care that obviously she'd had some coaching. He gathered her into his arms and hugged her tightly, breathing in the scent of her deeply and listening to the sound of her pleased laughter in his ears.

***

Dinner that night was simple, and Lucy kicked her feet in the high chair as she hummed happily to herself, a plastic fork clenched in her chubby fist. Discussion wound up being about Eames' observations to lead to his forgery, and Ariadne described the work on the mazes that she was building. Arthur added a few statements here and there based on what his research had been able to contribute. They occasionally smiled and laughed with Lucy, and she didn't seem to mind that the conversation was flowing around her without her input.

Eames goggled at the state of Lucy's room. Somehow more toys had found their way into the room, and there were more clothes than he remembered purchasing. "I was only gone for two weeks!" he said, incredulous.

"She's a growing child," Arthur remarked mildly. "Not everything marked 24 months actually fits her."

He blinked, noting the pile of clothes with tags still on them lying on the dresser. Most of them were from The Nursery Window, a posh store near their home. Eames could imagine Arthur marching into the store with a platinum card and buying everything in sight. "So are you returning them or exchanging?" he asked, watching as Ariadne kissed Lucy's cheeks and forehead in preparation for bed. Eames had the Narnia book to read, and he settled beside the bed to begin reading it.

"There's always saving them if we ever have another," Ariadne said, stepping back. When she realized what she said, she shot Eames a worried look. "Or I can call Rhiannon and see if any of the estate kids could use them..."

"It's all right," he murmured softly, running his hand over Lucy's back through the covers. She looked at him, smiling behind her binky. "You don't have to tiptoe 'round things for my benefit," Eames murmured. He started reading the book over again, and missed the look of shock that passed between Ariadne and Arthur.

Once Lucy was asleep, the three adults left the room and Arthur turned on the monitor. He noted the relaxed set of Eames' shoulders and quirked an eyebrow at Ariadne. She smiled in response; they had already discussed plans for welcoming Eames home from his trip.

Eames was startled when Arthur pulled him into a kiss, which was rough enough that he thought their teeth would cut through their lips. Ariadne had her hands around his waist, undoing the buckle on his belt. Between the two of them, Eames could feel whatever resolve he might have had to stay clothed melt. They staggered toward the bedroom, shedding clothes along the way. Ariadne knelt on the bed to reach Eames' mouth more easily. She pulled on his shoulders, causing him to fall over her. She laughed against his mouth, winding her arms and legs around him. Eames could feel the bed dip down from Arthur climbing in beside them, his slim fingers trailing down his spine.

Ariadne moved to kiss Eames' jaw, then took his earlobe between her lips. Eames shifted slightly to cup a breast between his fingers, making her gasp deliciously against his ear. "I take it you missed me?" he teased, rolling the nipple between his blunt fingers. He laughed at her affirmative hum of pleasure, and moved to take her breast into his mouth.

Arthur grabbed condoms and lube from the bedside drawer and started to work a finger into Eames. "We both did," he murmured, leaning down to press kisses along Eames' spine. He smiled when the other man made his own little sounds of pleasure. Arthur licked a stripe down Eames' back, balancing himself with his left palm on the bed.

Shifting to Ariadne's other breast, Eames shamelessly pushed back into Arthur's hand. He slid one hand down to tangle between Ariadne's thighs, finding her wet and more than ready for him. "Oh, whatever you're doing," Ariadne gasped, running her fingers through Eames' hair, "Do it again," she said, arching up into Eames' mouth. It made Arthur chuckle and speed up a bit, which had Eames' hips stutter slightly.

Eames lifted his head to look at Ariadne. "I want to taste you," he growled, lips hovering over her skin. She nodded and shimmied into place, spreading her legs wide for him.

"Fuck, that's a gorgeous view," Arthur murmured, curling his finger inside of Eames. He slid a second one in as Eames dropped his lips to her folds. He grasped her hips and used his thumbs to spread her wide, running his tongue along her slit and then around her clit. Humming a little with pleasure as Arthur picked up the pace, Eames worked Ariadne with his lips and tongue. She had a fist over her mouth, trying to muffle her cries. "I'm going to fuck you hard," Arthur growled, grabbing the lube and a condom from where he had tossed them onto the bed. "You're going to feel it next week."

Eames canted his hips back and let out a satisfied sound as Arthur pushed his sheathed cock deeply into him. Arthur grasped Eames' hips and snapped his own forward in fast, shallow thrusts. He dug his fingers in deep, watching Ariadne pant and moan beneath Eames' mouth, writhing and biting down on a knuckle. Arthur's breath quickened at the sight of them, his movements speeding up. Eames made a soft groaning sound, and he thrust his tongue deep into Ariadne. She mewled, head lolling on the bed. "Please," she whimpered, eyes shut tight as her body shook beneath his mouth. "More, there, please, Eames..."

Arthur came first, hips stuttering against Eames. He was still hard, his cock weeping and nearly pressed against his stomach. Pushing his blunt fingers inside of Ariadne, Eames sucked on her clit until she came. When Arthur pulled out, he curled up on his side and watched Eames kiss the inside of Ariadne's thighs as she came down from her orgasm. She pushed herself up to a sitting position with a little difficulty, then grinned at him. "Me on top," she said as she pushed on his shoulders. Eames laughed and shifted onto his back to oblige her, and ran his hands along her body appreciatively as she took the condom that Arthur handed her.

Ariadne rolled it on him and then guided him into her, and started to rock over him. She sighed in pleasure at the feel of Eames inside her, grinning when he slid his hands over her stomach and chest. Arthur let his hand run along her backside in soothing strokes then leaned forward to press his lips against Eames' side. He groaned, sensitive and aching as Ariadne moved over him with her hands on his shoulders for balance. Eames let one of his hands drop to fall over Arthur's head, fingers sliding through his hair. "Amazing," he groaned, tilting his hips up to thrust deep into Ariadne's down stroke. "Both of you."

Arthur ran his teeth along Eames' hip then watched as Ariadne sped up. By the way Eames started to tense, Arthur knew that he would finishing long before Ariadne would. He slid his hand between their bodies and started to rub at her clit. She gasped and tightened, making Eames groan and lean his head back into the pillows. Moving his hand faster and harder, Arthur tried to get Ariadne off. Eames came first, body tensing then stuttering beneath hers. A few more strokes and then Ariadne's breath fractured. Another stroke and then she was choking back her cries to keep quiet.

Curling up over Eames, she smiled against his neck. "We kinda missed you," she said, laughing a little at the pleased sound he made. She slid her hand across his chest to tangle her fingers with Arthur's. He tucked himself close to Eames as well and kissed his shoulder. "In case you couldn't tell," she added with another soft laugh.

He ran his hand along her spine and turned his head to kiss Arthur. "I did miss you both," Eames admitted with a soft sigh. Neither seemed to make a big deal out of the admission. He was glad they didn't, because it would have made him feel even more self-conscious.

"Was it difficult to get close to Warner?" Arthur asked, propping himself up on one elbow as Ariadne moved to start cleaning up.

"No, not at all," Eames replied, sitting up as well. It would be tempting to simply lie there and not bother cleaning up, but Arthur would probably make him sleep in the wet spot. "I suppose this means it's time to get to work?"

"Lucy's asleep for the night, so we can get more done than during her nap tomorrow." Arthur sat up and grabbed his underwear off of the floor to put it on. "Why don't we go over the levels and see if it fits what you found out?"

"We're still going to go two under?"

"It would probably work the easiest."

Ariadne came back into the bedroom and pulled on underwear and a cami. She clambered up onto the bed and crawled on hands and knees until she was close enough to kiss him playfully on the lips. "So... I had my sketchbook in the living room, but I had a basic idea for the level one maze to be his main office, since he spends so much time there. The second level might be the home office. It would be a little bit different, but not so different that he'd be uncomfortable."

"All that from knowing he's a workaholic?"

"If you're going to be the workaholic partner of a workaholic, there's not going to be much point in sending the subject home, right? And he wouldn't go anywhere out of the ordinary." She kissed the tip of his nose. "So we're going to make it painfully ordinary for him."

"Painfully ordinary," Eames echoed, amused.

Ariadne's giggle was pleasant to hear. He'd missed the sound while he was away, so he pulled her down to the bed and rolled her beneath him. She wrapped her arms around him, grinning up at him. "Well, you _did_ call it that over the phone."

Arthur sat on the edge of the bed and ran his fingertips along Eames' spine. "Work, Mr. Eames?" he asked in dry tones.

It wasn't nearly as irritating as it used to be. He definitely missed the point man and his hideously stringent work ethic.

"Mustn't disappoint our dear Arthur," Eames told Ariadne in playfully warning tones. She giggled again, and they got up off the bed to head to the living room to work.

Eames didn't feel as if their working relationship had changed due to Lucy's arrival. Even working in their underwear was the same. There was something about working through the debauched, fucked-out glow that was pleasant, rather like tossing around ideas while buzzed from alcohol or some really good drugs. Ariadne's skin was flushed and luminous, and her laughter was contagious. Arthur was all loose limbed and less uptight, not as worried about getting precise ideas across as he would be if they were working with a larger team. Eames thought of his suits as armor, the professional skin that covered up the sarcasm he so rarely showed. He knew he carried himself aloof in different ways, but over the last year he had become more and more honest with them both. If he truly thought about it, he wasn't sorry for that.

The baby monitor crackled and he heard Lucy make some noises of distress. It was closest to Arthur, who checked it perfunctorily, then turned the video off. "What?" Eames asked, frowning at him. "What is it?"

"She was turning over in her sleep." Arthur passed over the monitor to let Eames look for himself. "She even sprawls across the bed the same way you do."

"Ha bloody ha," Eames replied in a droll tone as he pressed the button to turn on the video. He stared down at the night vision image of his daughter in her sleep. There was an arm slung around her bear, covers up to her chest. The other arm was flung across the edge of her pillow, fingers moving restlessly. Her eyes were closed, and she gave an errant suck on the binky. "Oh. She does sleep like me."

Ariadne leaned over his arm and looked at the image. She grinned up at him and pressed a kiss to his bicep. "She's fine, Eames. Trust me, we've been up and down the first few nights thinking something was going to happen. She's just a restless sleeper."

He should know these things, shouldn't he? He should know what foods she liked to eat, what games she liked to play, which of those hideously brightly colored children's shows she liked to watch. Fathers knew those sorts of things about their children, didn't they?

Ariadne snatched up the monitor from his grasp and turned off the video. Eames could still hear the staticky hum that indicated the volume was turned all the way up. "Work now, since we already had our play."

Eames couldn't help but leer at her. "So who says we can't play again later?" he asked playfully, twirling a lock of her hair around his finger. Her delighted laughter was like a gift. So was the amused glint in Arthur's eyes.

This was his life now, wasn't it? The quiet domesticity and work that he thought would sap his creativity, drain his soul and leave him gasping. Instead, it gave him a sense of comfort and peace, rather like the feeling of sleeping in late on a rainy Sunday morning. It would be horribly sappy and unlike him to say such a thing, however, so he simply ran through ideas and let Arthur pick holes in them. Ariadne listened closely, ready to alter her maze or add more hiding places if they thought it necessary to do so. They were a team, understanding what they meant without having to say the words for the job.

He was saying _I love you_ without saying the words. Eames was sure they understood his meaning anyway.

***

Lucy's birthday party was more of an extended brunch with cake. Rhiannon hadn't been able to come to Arthur's flat, though she and her entire brood had been invited for Lucy's sake. Eames knew that would have been Ariadne's doing. She remembered social niceties like that. Lucy didn't seem to notice. She liked her scrambled eggs plain, using a plastic spoon awkwardly in her left hand. She then picked up the sausage slices in her right, and happily drank chocolate milk to wash it all down. "It's either that or strawberry," Ariadne had told Eames at his odd look. "She won't drink the plain stuff anymore, even in cereal."

Ariadne had made omelettes and coffee for the adults. It was rather like every other late morning breakfast they had spent together, regardless of which continent they were on at the time. Their topics of discussion tended to revolve around work or gossip about dream share, and Lucy happily hummed along with the rhythm of their speech. Once she was wiped down, she tore through the wrapping paper of her presents in the living room. She wasn't particularly enthusiastic about the potty chair or the new pajamas that had Disney princesses on them, but she loved the Dora the Explorer coloring book and Tinkerbell sweatshirt. She ran around the room with scraps of paper in one hand and the sweatshirt in her other, her precious bear forgotten on the floor next to the coffee table. Eames snapped a few photos on his cell phone, Lucy's bright smile making his heart clench. What if no one had been able to find him?

The cake was a hit. It was plain yellow sponge cake and icing, which Lucy devoured first and managed to get smeared across her nose and cheeks. She waved a handful of yellow cake in one fist, despite being fully able to use a fork to eat it. "Cake," she said happily. "Cake, cake, cake, cake, cake!"

"I take it she likes cake," Eames said in droll tones.

"She does take after you," Arthur replied in the same tone he used for work.

Ariadne simply snapped pictures of them all on her camera, laughing with Lucy all the while. Lucy adored the camera, tilting her face up and baring her teeth in the semblance of a frosting-coated smile. Once she was wiped clean a second time, she was off and running around the living room again. Ariadne and Arthur started filling the dish washer as Eames nominally watched Lucy scramble over everything in the living room with delighted squeaks of laughter. He turned back a few times toward the kitchen; Arthur was bending over to load the lower rack of the dishwasher, and Eames did appreciate the curve of his arse in his trousers. Ariadne caught him looking and grinned at him, then nodded toward their bedroom. "I'll finish this," she said, taking a plate from Arthur unceremoniously.

"What?" he asked, affronted. "I wasn't going to drop that."

Eames grasped him by the back of his neck and gave him a filthy kiss. "I have plans for you, Arthur," he purred. "And they don't involve little children."

Arthur saw Ariadne's conspiratorial grin and understood. His eyes widened a fraction and he looked back toward the living room, where Lucy was happily scribbling in her new coloring book. "Won't be long, then," he told Ariadne.

"Speak for yourself, darling," Eames said, nipping his earlobe. He gave Ariadne a grin and blew her a kiss. "Bless you. Your turn later."

The two men headed toward the bedroom and shut the door before attacking each others' mouths in a lusty kiss. Eames licked the inside of Arthur's mouth as his hands attacked his sweat pants. "I want to fuck you hard enough to see stars," he growled against his lips. "So you always know I'm coming back."

"Eames," Arthur groaned, fingers sliding through his hair. He had never needed declarations of affection, though he liked them. It wasn't Eames' way, he knew. Hearing this much made him give Eames an open mouthed kiss, pulling him close.

Arthur got the lube and box of condoms, though Eames just pushed him onto his back on the edge of the bed. He tugged Arthur's pants and underwear down to his knees and liberally coated his fingers with lube. "I want you hard and panting for me," Eames said, eyes dark with lust. The night before hadn't been nearly enough to make up for the two weeks he had been away in the countryside working.

Two fingers curled inside of Arthur and stroking his prostate was enough to get his hips jerking and breath hitching in his chest. Eames was leaning over to grab the bottle of lube when he heard a soft creaking sound behind him. He froze and turned around in time to see Lucy coming into the bedroom, hand on the doorknob. Her eyes were wide and guileless. "Doing Daddy?" she asked, her face upturned to look at Eames. He knew she meant _What are you doing, Daddy?_ but his mind was firmly in the gutter, and that wasn't what he heard.

"Yes. Um. Right."

"Doing Daddy?" she repeated, head tilting slightly as she tried to understand what was going on. As far as Eames could tell, she couldn't actually see anything that they were doing. All Lucy could see was Eames leaning over Arthur, who was sprawled across the bed.

Eames smiled at her encouragingly, making her smile widely at him. "How about you color with Ariadne, Lucy? Or watch one of your Dora shows with her?" None of them were particularly enamored with certain repetitive aspects of these children's shows, but Lucy adored them and stared at the screen with rapt attention. Arthur had also sworn in his e-mails that they were helping her learn to count.

"Okay, Daddy," Lucy chirped happily, not noticing Arthur's sprawled knees trembling with the effort to keep still and out of her notice.

Eames waited until she was far enough down the short hallway to lean back and kick the bedroom door shut. He grinned at Arthur, who had a fist in his mouth. "Dear God, that was a close one," he said with a laugh. He probably should have been mortified, caught out by a two year old this way, but instead it just seemed terribly funny. "Think I can still get you to finish before that show of hers is done?"

"It's twenty-four minutes to credits," Arthur replied promptly. Of course he would know that sort of thing. "You owe me every single minute."

Eames curled his fingers, making the slimmer man jump and gasp. "Oh, I intend to give it to you, darling," he purred, eyes dancing. "Let's see if I can make you shout loud enough to give the girls a fright," he teased, pouring lube onto his fingers. Arthur groaned when he slipped the third finger inside and started a steady rhythm. "Shall we?"

"Yes," Arthur groaned, kicking one of his legs free of his clothes. That spread him wider for Eames, and the forger took advantage of that to lean in and kiss his mouth. He stopped before Arthur could come, making him sputter derogatory curses in three languages. Eames rolled on a condom and thrust deeply into Arthur, making him groan and arch on the bed. Arthur didn't last much longer, and he was tight enough that Eames came embarrassingly quickly.

"Round two during her nap," Eames promised Ariadne when they came out of the bedroom just before the closing credits started. Ariadne kissed him, her hand sliding along his back to cup his rear possessively. Her pleased smile was answer enough.

It was the best child's birthday party Eames could remember attending.

***  
***


	5. Finding Balance

"Oh, your daughter is just so lovely," a young mother told Ariadne as they sat in the park. Her daughter was a little older than Lucy, but the two of them were playing with dolls next to each other, occasionally checking what the other was doing.

"Lucy isn't my daughter," Ariadne said, shaking her head. "She's my..." Ariadne trailed off and tried to think of what to call Eames. "Well, he and I never said what we'd call each other."

The other young woman laughed. "So you're her stepmum, then," she supplied helpfully.

"Sort of," Ariadne agreed.

She held out her hand. "Marisol. That's Violet over there with your Lucy."

Ariadne grinned and shook her hand. "Nice to meet you, Marisol. I'm Ariel." It was the name she was using while in England, anyway.

"Ariel? How lovely. Not like the Disney movie, is it?"

Ariadne laughed. "More like from the Shakespeare play," she said. It was where she had picked the name from, at least. She had wanted something similar to her own name. Ariadne wasn't sure that she would respond to a cover identity if she had picked something unfamiliar to her like Claire or Ellie.

It was nice to talk with Marisol for the rest of the afternoon, who assured her that Lucy was an utterly charming little girl, and just like Violet. They swapped phone numbers, and Ariadne was careful to add a notation that she should answer the phone as Ariel. Marisol also gave her the number of their babysitter, just in case they needed it.

Arthur of course had to complete a background check on Marisol and the babysitter, though there wasn't much to find. It served to be a good distraction when he was hitting security walls in their actual subject's financial records. Eames couldn't help but laugh at Arthur's slightly disgruntled expression when there was nothing for him to find. "Did you really think our neighbors would be some kind of hardened criminal?" he snarked. "You picked this place specifically so your goody-goody persona could fit right in."

"Matthew Carew works in finance," Arthur said without looking up from his computer. "It's hardly goody-goody."

"More so than international dream thief," Ariadne pointed out, reaching over impulsively to ruffle his hair. Arthur gave her a sour look, but that only made her laugh. She leaned over and kissed his cheek, grinning when he couldn't quite hide the glance down her blouse. "Well, since the sitter checks out, I could still watch over the both of you and the PASIV either in the real world or in the first layer, if you want."

Eames looked over at the both of them, nerves roiling in his gut. Part of him didn't want the three of them involved at once, just in case something went wrong. Lucy had to be protected at all costs, and even if she didn't belong to either of them, they were still emotionally invested. He knew they would look after her if anything ever happened to him and he was unable to come back to Lucy.

"Uh oh. I know that look," Ariadne intoned. That made Arthur look up in concern. "This is about Lucy, isn't it?" she asked, head tilted to the side as she contemplated him.

His first instinct was to deny it and pretend nothing was wrong. He pushed it away to nod, and was oddly gratified by the surprise in Arthur's eyes. "Should we really take the chance that she'd have no one looking after her?"

"This is as safe a job as I can manage it," Arthur told him, brows furrowed. "I'm looking to see if there are any other angles for security, but I can't find it. We're clean on this."

"All three of us plus Channing, then?" Eames asked, still feeling his gut roil. He thought of Lucy in her bedtime sprawl, arms flung every which way as she slept. What if he didn't come back to that? What if none of them came back?

"Channing's a marksman," Arthur replied with a nod. "On the outside chance that there is _any_ physical security, he'll keep us safe."

There was worry there, however. It was imprecise and a vague nagging feeling in his gut, but Eames didn't know how to explain it. He knew how he felt, how he could explain it, yet he knew that the words would simply sound stupid and belittling. _Logically_ he knew that Arthur was right. Lucy would be fine with the babysitter and it would simply be two or three hours of real time. She wouldn't be in danger. His gut roiled, however. _What if?_ Those were possibly the two most terrifying words in the English language to a parent.

Oh, dear god. He was thinking of himself as a _parent._

Ariadne moved over to Eames's side and took his hand in hers. She ran her lower lip along his knuckles until he looked at her, really _looked._ She was so tiny and fragile-looking, but she had gotten stronger and more adept at physical security and protection while getting more involved in dream share. No one would know it to look at her, but Eames trusted her to watch his back. Not as much as Arthur, but that was because of sheer physical mass and skill, not because he thought any less of her. "We'll be safe, Eames. We'll be safe, and we'll come home to Lucy, and it will be okay." She smiled up at him, and Eames wanted to kiss her smiling mouth for helping to settle him. "It will all be okay."

"Because you say so?" he teased, feeling his shoulders relax a bit.

"Damn straight," she said, grinning up at him.

She let go of his hands to head to the kitchen for a glass of water, and Eames tracked her movements. He caught Arthur's eye when he looked back at the file in his hand on the man he was planning to forge. "What?"

"You say you can't be a father," he murmured softly. "But this is what it is to be a father, you know. It's planning ahead to keep her safe, to be sure that you come home to her. It's doing the right thing by her, even if it's not the easy thing."

It helped to hear it, and Eames nodded at Arthur. His father hadn't come home, and he didn't visit with his mother often. Eames could hear the comparison that he didn't voice, and he could feel more of his tension bleed away. "I didn't really have one."

"Which makes it that much more remarkable that you're doing a good job."

"Such a flatterer," Eames replied as Ariadne came back into the room. She let her fingers brush against the back of his head in a light caress as she passed him to get back to her seat. It was an easy sort of affection, a casual touch that didn't have to lead to more. It used to make him feel uncomfortable, as if she expected more from him. Arthur didn't do those kinds of gestures; with Arthur, it was the tilt to his lips and the amused light in his eyes. He wasn't as demonstrative, so every extra touch was that much more special.

There was that amused look in Arthur's eyes now, and Eames grinned at the sight of it. "Just do your work, Mr. Eames," Arthur intoned. The corner of his lips curled into a slight smile. "Maybe we'll take a vacation after the job, all four of us. It's never too early to show her the world."

Something in Eames loosened completely at the words and Ariadne's delighted assent. Instead of feeling terrified at the prospect, he was inordinately pleased. The four of them as a family, taking in the sights and teaching Lucy about the wonders of the world.

He grinned at Arthur. "Yeah. I'd like that."

***

Lucy gleefully started counting the books on the shelf, pointing as she went along. "One... two... one... two... one..."

"After two comes three, Lucy," Eames said, looking over at her from his spot on the couch. She turned and looked at him owlishly, an expression he was sure had never graced his own face. It had to be from Claudia.

Turning back around, Lucy pointed at the books again. "One. Two. One. Two."

Eames put down the folder he was going through and knelt beside Lucy. He followed the line she was moving along, counting with her. "One. Two. Three." He repeated the counting with her, carefully repeating _three_ when she kept pronouncing it as _free._ He ignored Ariadne's giggles behind him, keeping his focus on Lucy. Ariadne came over beside them and planted a kiss on Eames' temple. "What was that for?"

"Being handsome," she replied with a grin. She leaned in and gave him another kiss. "I'm going to work on the first level a little more. I'll be in the office for a bit of quiet."

"I _can_ function without you, Ariadne," Eames snarked.

She giggled again and kissed his lips, earning them a disgruntled "Look _me,_ Daddy!" from Lucy. Ariadne laughed as Lucy hit his arm and kept repeating "Look _me,_ Daddy!" at the top of her lungs. As Eames grasped Lucy and pulled her across into his lap, Ariadne got up to get the PASIV from the desk in the office.

Ariadne woke when the timer ran out. She smelled pancakes and had to smile. Pancakes were the ultimate comfort food for Eames for some reason, which Ariadne enjoyed and Arthur thought was utterly ridiculous. There was the sound of sizzling and toddler giggles, as well as Eames singing off key. She slid the needles from her wrist and then started to tidy up the PASIV. She'd done quite a bit of work on the first level, and as far as she was concerned, it was done. All she had to do now was walk Arthur and Eames through it.

A crash interrupted her, and she left the PASIV on top of the desk. By the time she got to the kitchen, Lucy was wailing at the noise and Eames was trying to wipe up excess batter. Large tears rolled down Lucy's cheeks, and Eames nodded so that Ariadne could pick her up from the high chair to hug and soothe her as he cleaned.

The crisis was neatly avoided, and Ariadne sat down beside Lucy. She managed to start Lucy singing "Twinkle, twinkle little star" as Eames whipped up a few pancakes out of the remaining batter. He grinned his thanks at her, and they finished up all of the pancakes by the time Arthur got out of the master bedroom with his cell phone and notebooks. "All set with the last minute details?" Eames asked, bringing the last of the plates to the sink.

Arthur looked on amused as Ariadne cleaned up Lucy's hands and mouth with baby wipes. "All done. Looks like you had a snack without me."

Lucy giggled and grinned up at Arthur. He couldn't help but laugh, and put his notebooks and phone high up on a shelf in the kitchen so that she couldn't reach them. "There's other stuff in the fridge," Ariadne said helpfully, lifting Lucy out of the high chair.

The rest of the afternoon and evening flew by quickly. Eames would have thought that sitting around with blocks and crayons and a TV playing toddler-friendly videos would have been boring. He never would have imagined that sitting around and grinning at nothing could be a productive way to spend the afternoon, and that having a little girl try to walk around in his shoes could be as hilarious as it was. "Look me, Daddy!" Lucy cried with a grin as she tottered around in his dress shoes. "Look me!"

He caught her up in his arms and swung her around, making her laugh and shriek "Down!" at him while flailing her arms. "Super baby!" she laughed when he didn't immediately put her down. "I super baby!"

"Exactly right, poppet," he said, pulling her close to press a kiss to her cheeks. She twisted out of his arms and then began running around the living room as Eames pretended to chase her. Arthur was smirking at him, and Ariadne was openly gigging.

He could spend a lifetime like this, he decided as he read another chapter to Lucy that night. This wasn't necessarily a bad way to live. He didn't have to keep running. He didn't have to hide from everyone, didn't have to keep shifting names around.

Eames' eyes fell on the PASIV that Ariadne hadn't put away. Lucy was mostly asleep, so he quietly slid the drawer in the desk open to replace it. The front part of the deep drawer held various files. Normally, Eames didn't look twice at them. He didn't always recognize the names on them, and he rather thought it was Arthur's compulsive need to create dossiers that led to most of the files in there. He paused as he placed the PASIV in the back of the drawer.

 _Claudia Simmons. Lucy Simmons._

Lucy's file was slim. It held the altered birth certificate that had Eames' name added to it, and Arthur had quietly replaced the real paper documents. There were photos of Lucy as an infant, some of them looking like grainy webcam shots. He had obtained a copy of her immunization record, lists of her heights and weights, as well as the prior notes in case there ever was a problem and Lucy needed medical care. Eames sat back heavily on the floor as he took in the numbers, seeing Lucy's growth laid out on a chart. It neatly arced up, following the 75th percentile on the growth chart.

Claudia's file was thicker. Like Lucy's, it started with her birth certificate. She had always been a South Londoner, but he had known that part. Her school records were incomplete; she dropped out long before Eames had met her. Arthur had obtained a copy of her arrest records, a summary of the time she had spent in state care as well as recommendation to follow with a psychiatrist for traumatic events that were never explicitly stated. She hadn't ever sought any care, and the official records stopped then. Arthur had hacked into her Facebook and MySpace profiles, and had printed out the various status updates and pictures she had put up on her profiles. Eames looked over the lists of quotes and movies and music that she had liked, as well as the comments about "finally finding the one that will always give a shit about me."

Apparently, she hadn't minded that Billy had left. She would have something to remember him by, and she figured a child would care about her. A child would never leave.

Claudia had posted pictures of Lucy all over her profiles, and had comments about how hard it was to care for a baby on her own.

And then there was the death certificate. He'd never asked Joshua how Claudia died. He hadn't wanted to know for certain. It could have been an overdose or gang violence, or some kind of illness. He didn't need to know, really. It didn't matter, as she was dead anyway.

The cause of death given was massive internal hemorrhaging due to trauma obtained during a motor vehicle accident. She had been a passenger in the accident, the victim of a drunk driver. According to the police report that Arthur had also gathered, she and her friend had been coming back from a party; her friend had died instantly. Claudia had died on the way to the hospital.

Eames put both folders back where he found them and pressed a kiss onto Lucy's forehead. She was asleep now, oblivious to his inner turmoil. He hadn't really cared about Claudia before. She had been a way to pass the time while hiding, an easy shag that he quickly forgot about. Yet here was Lucy, and now Eames couldn't imagine life without her. Anyone else might consider her a mistake or an inconvenience. Lord only knew how many people had thought that of him as he was growing up.

Ariadne had Arthur's notebooks in front of her, a thoughtful expression on her face. If Eames had to guess, his new information wasn't about to change the last few alterations she had done on her level earlier that day. He sat beside her and slung an arm around her shoulders. She gave him a smile without really turning her head from the notebook. Not really sure what he wanted or needed, he started nuzzling her neck.

She turned and slipped an arm around her shoulders. "Mmm. What brought this on?"

"Haven't had alone time with you in a while."

"This is a good point." Ariadne ran her hand along his back. "Arthur went into the bedroom, but he wouldn't be sleeping now. Unless you want him to hear?"

"Don't care," Eames murmured, dragging his lips across her pulse. "Do you?" he asked, sliding his hand beneath her shirt to cup a breast. His lips drew back into a smile when he felt her pulse jump erratically at the touch.

"N-no," she answered breathily.

He pulled at her shirt and she helped to take it off. Eames covered most of her body as he layered kisses over her bared skin, and Ariadne slipped her hands between their bodies to undo his belt and trousers. He made a soft growling sound as she stroked him through his underwear, pushing his hips against hers. "A little eager, then," she said, voice catching slightly.

"Maybe," he agreed, nibbling at her breast through her bra.

"You're definitely going to tip off Arthur when you get a condom," she said, sliding her other hand along his stomach.

"He can watch, then," Eames replied, moving to kiss her mouth again. He wasn't thinking about anything past the sensation of her skin against his stomach where his shirt rode up, or how annoying it was to push his fingers past the narrow strip of panties to touch her. Her ragged breathing was like music to his ears, and he needed the sensation of her hand around his cock so badly he thought he might come right there.

It was difficult to disentangle himself from her, but he managed to kick off his trousers and underwear so that he could get into the bedroom. Arthur was sitting on the bed with a book in German and headphones on; Eames guessed he had wanted the quiet to study the language. He lofted an eyebrow at Eames' erection and the fact that the forger made a beeline for the bedside table. "Need help?" he asked, smirking.

"Fuck you," Eames replied cheerfully, grabbing a handful of condoms just to spite Arthur. He paused just long enough to pull off his shirt and lob it at Arthur with a laugh.

Back in the living room, he laughed to see Ariadne sliding out of her own clothes with a saucy grin on her face. He pulled her to the floor next to the couch and urged her onto her hands and knees. "I haven't had you like this in a while," he said, lips against the curve of her spine. She laughed and wiggled her bottom beneath him, making him groan.

"Are you all talk, then?" she taunted playfully.

Eames managed to roll on a condom and then push into her. Ariadne made a soft squeak of surprise, and turned her head to look over her shoulder. He was grinning at her, his big hands tight on her hips. "Think this is all talk, darling?"

"Definitely not," she said, pushing back into him.

He moved hard and fast, the way she liked it, but he had already been close before. It was too awkward to reach around to try to reach her clit, so he leaned a little forward and grasped one nipple between his fingers and squeezed lightly. Ariadne had to press her mouth against her arm to keep from crying out at the contact, and she kept pushing back into his thrusts. "I won't last," he warned her, feeling her start to tighten.

"Don't you dare," she gasped, but it was too late. His hips jerked erratically against hers, and she was left making a mewling sound of disappointment when he slowed. "Eames," she whined, turning to look at him.

"Sorry, love," he sighed as he withdrew. He caught Arthur standing in the hallway, arms crossed over his chest. He was half hard, the smug bastard, and Eames flipped him off casually. "I suppose Arthur could be nice enough to help you out."

Ariadne got up to her knees and pulled Eames in for a kiss. "You awful tease," she told him with a grin. "I'll get even, you know."

He grinned as got to his feet. "Yes, I know. Ought to be delicious when you do."

Eames cleaned up and wasn't terribly surprised to see Arthur guiding himself into Ariadne. She hadn't even moved too far from her prior position, and Arthur moved hard and fast. He watched them as he put his underwear and pants back on, liking the look of their bodies in motion. He came closer and knelt beside them. Eames pressed his lips to Arthur's back and slid his hand between Ariadne's legs to flick his fingers along her clit. She let out a moan before she could stop herself, and pressed her mouth against her arm again to muffle the sound.

"Fuck, Eames," Arthur growled. "She got so tight..."

Eames chuckled against his back, starting to speed up his strokes a little. "Make her come, Arthur," he murmured.

She gasped and moaned, pushing back against Arthur a little as her fingers scrabbled against the floor. Eames stroked her a little harder, and that was enough to make her groan and nearly collapse onto her forearms. Arthur let out a strangled growl at the sensation, his thrusts becoming a little more erratic. Eames nipped his hip playfully, and then leaned back to watch Arthur's expression as he came. It took them both a moment to come down, and Eames simply sat there on the floor watching them. When Arthur pulled out after another moment, he leaned down and gave Ariadne a kiss, tongue sliding into her slack mouth. She reached up to touch his shoulders for balance, and let go when he pulled back. Eames gathered her up into his arms afterward, not realizing he was rocking her slightly until she made a pleased humming noise.

"Nice distraction there," she commented, reaching up to touch his jaw.

"Yeah," he said, liking the feel of her in his arms. He thought back to the pictures of Claudia with Lucy, but didn't feel too much guilt this time for not caring about Claudia. They'd barely known each other. Her death was a tragedy, but more for Lucy's sake. If anything happened to Ariadne or to Arthur... Not liking that train of thought, Eames let his fingers ghost over the skin of her chest, right below the rise of her breasts. "You were too deep in thought."

She snickered and snuggled closer to him. "Now I'm not in the mood for thinking. Mission accomplished." Ariadne leaned up long enough to kiss his jawline.

Arthur was back in the doorway after washing up, a soft smile on his face. "Is that private snuggling time there?"

"Nah," Eames replied, looking at him with a smile. He opened up his arms on one side and grinned wider when Arthur sat on the floor beside him. "Not finishing your studies, then?"

"I can redo the lesson tomorrow night," Arthur said, leaning into Eames a little. "I think we're ready to do the test run with the babysitter soon. Dinner out, maybe, see how Lucy likes her."

"So you definitely got Channing on board?" Eames asked, feeling that hollow sense in his gut again. What if something happened? What if they couldn't come back to Lucy?

"He's ready to go when we are." Arthur patted Eames' thigh and Ariadne turned in his embrace to kiss his cheek. "We've got everything planned, and we will know the levels cold."

"The tweaks I did today were more for my level than yours," Ariadne added. She shivered a little but didn't feel like hunting her clothes down just yet. "It's going to be gorgeous," she said, a proud smile on her face. "You'll love it."

"We just need this to go right, is all," Eames murmured.

"It will. I have every contingency covered," Arthur replied. He shot Eames a wry look. "Why do you think I'm brushing up on my German?"

"Because you're not happy unless you're busy plotting something," Eames replied promptly.

"Well, yes. But also because I have a few different escape routes planned, just in case we need them, as well as stirring up the competition. Our subject won't think of dream share if his competition is starting to make a move on local markets."

Eames let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. Of course Arthur made contingency plans. Of course he had alternate explanations for their presence planned. Of course.

"You're still thinking," Ariadne said, taking his earlobe between her teeth to tug lightly. She smiled and kissed his neck. "Obviously, your brain isn't mush yet. Maybe Arthur and I can see to that..."

Eames couldn't help but laugh and hold them tighter. He was worrying for nothing. Of course he was. It would all go according to plan.

Actually, it went better than planned.

The trial run with the babysitter went better than Eames hoped, which made him feel halfway awful. Lucy loved the babysitter and hardly noticed when they left, and there had apparently been no fuss with the bedtime routine at all. The next morning she was as bright and bubbly as ever, and was singing the nursery rhymes she had apparently sung the entire night before. Eames had his level of the dream memorized and ready, and Ariadne was confident she could hold the first level steady for them.

Channing was a taciturn and amoral bastard, but good at what he did. There were no problems breaking into the subject's house and getting him hooked up to the PASIV. There was no subconscious security at all, and he didn't doubt Eames' forge. As he rattled off various bits of information, Arthur rifled through files in his dream office. Between the two of them, they got more than enough information to satisfy their employers. Channing reported no suspicious activity at all while they were under, and took his cut of the payout before disappearing.

Arthur presented everything to their employer as Eames and Ariadne drove back to the flat in Kensington. Lucy was coloring with the babysitter, babbling nonsense syllables happily. She looked up with a grin as Eames sat down next to her. "I color, Daddy!" she cried, banging the coloring book with her chubby little fist. He laughed as she shoved the red crayon at him. "You color too," Lucy said, blue eyes wide. "Color me _now."_

"Pet, that's not nice," the sitter chided as she cleaned up her own drawing. She took the money from Ariadne as Lucy stuck out her lower lip at her. "You need to act nice for Daddy, right?" She waited for Lucy to nod. "So how do you ask nicely?"

"Pwease!" Lucy cried, turning back to Eames and shoving the crayon at him.

Eames nodded his thanks at the sitter. "Was she a handful?" he asked as he picked up the crayon.

The babysitter snorted indelicately. "Not by a long shot. You can tell she's an only child, but no child that age likes to share." She grinned at Eames. "No worries there. Lucy's my friend now, isn't she?"

"We color and play," Lucy said, jumping up to her feet. She grabbed the babysitter about her leg and grinned up. "I see you again!"

Ariadne laughed. "Next time we all go out again, we'll call."

Eames watched Lucy run back to the table happily, arms and legs pumping before she plopped down on the floor beside him. He pulled her close for a kiss on the cheek, which she graciously allowed before smacking the coloring book. "You color, Daddy." She paused, feeling everyone's eyes on her. "Pwease."

He had to grin. "Good girl, Lucy. I would love to color with you."

Oh, yes. All was right in his world.

The End


End file.
